


Running Interference

by gxlden



Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, Covert Operations, Espionage, Gen, Gun Violence, Miami, Organized Crime, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Spyverse, be gay do crimes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-01-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:27:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22151782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gxlden/pseuds/gxlden
Summary: In the aftermarket of burned spies, Sosuke Aizen is the best of the best. Once a covert operative coveted by the country as an exemplary agent, he now finds himself cut off from who he once was, abandoned by the institution that he risked his life for. The work he does know is freelance, what some might call private security if there was any sort of legitimacy to it -- stealing or protecting data, guarding or exterminating vulnerable assets, brokering chaos for the highest bidder.When an eccentric scientist approaches him with a threat that needs eliminating, Aizen accepts what could possibly be the biggest job of his civilian career. It'll take every ounce of his wits and skills to pull it off, and he'll need all the help he can get, even if it's from a smirking, gun-running punk like Gin Ichimaru.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Heavily inspired by the spy thriller series "Burn Notice." Very excited to put a gun in Aizen's hands and explore Miami with him and his crew. Enjoy the ride! Feedback always appreciated

The Desert Eagle has been touted as the most powerful semi-automatic handgun on the modern market, powered by a gas-operated mechanism and chambering the largest caliber cartridge of any magazine-fed, self-loading pistol. Add an iron sight and combat grips to a .44 magnum Mark XIX with a brushed chrome finish and the dangerous weapon could become a thing of beauty. Since the former Mossad agent he had tangled with last month was no longer in a position to appreciate such beauty, Aizen had been more than happy to take it off his hands and give it a loving and respectful home.

He was less than happy about the fact that the gun was currently sitting in the console of a stolen sedan between Nnoitra and Nel instead of tucked snugly in the waistband of his trousers as he waited for his client to arrive. A client that had insisted he come alone and unarmed, and technically, Aizen had complied. The jury was still out on the backup he had posted atop the parking garage two blocks away.

Dealing with eccentrics was inevitable in this line of work -- psychopaths, patriots, paranoids, Aizen had seen it all -- but Mayuri Kurotsuchi took the cake. Aizen could only hope he was in a good mood today. Nnoitra was not Aizen’s first choice in coverage, especially not with that windfallen M40 he’d happened upon last week, and he wasn’t eager to be kicked out of the Mina Bistro should he need to make a scene defending himself against Kurotsuchi’s step-daughter. That woman was dangerous.

He sipped his iced tea and continued to wait. 

Eventually, Kurotsuchi arrived. In the week that had passed since the two of them last met to settle their terms, the former government researcher had dyed his hair back to blue and added a new piercing to his left ear. Once he pulled off his sunglasses, all modern and gauche with rose gold frames, Aizen could see that he had chosen an unnatural emerald green color for his lenses today. 

“I like the new hair,” Aizen said. 

“Shut up,” Kurotsuchi replied mildly, sliding into the chair across the table from him. “Do you have what I asked for?”

“Of course,” Aizen said. “But I thought maybe we could exchange some sort of pleasantries this time around. How’ve you been, where’s Nemu hiding today, have you had the pepito here -- that sort of thing.”

“I don’t really think any of that is necessary.”

“Oh, come on, Mayuri. How many jobs have I done for you now? There’s no need for you to be so cold to me.”

“You keep talking any longer and I’m going to think you’re stalling for something.” Kurotsuchi almost sounded hopeful. Calling Nemu over from her place at the bar inside would probably be a delight for him. “Give me my data, I’ll give you your money, and then we can chitchat.”

“You wound me, Dr. Kurotsuchi. I told you that I could and I would get you the files you wanted from Bellflower, and I’m a man of my word -- I pride myself on it. It’s hard to hear that you don’t trust me.” 

As he spoke, Aizen closed the magazine he had been pretending to read while he sipped his iced tea and waited and slid it across the table to Kurotsuchi. Tucked behind the front page of last month’s first issue was a USB drive containing what Mayuri claimed were five years’ worth of patient files. What and whom they were patients of remained an irritating mystery, but Aizen had always liked his own privacy, so he made sure to afford his clients the same privilege. Kurotsuchi wasn’t paying him to pry, after all. 

The four grand he had given him ahead of time had covered his undercover reconnaissance expenses -- lunches, travel, a few greased palms and a cover ID -- and the remaining four would be enough to offset the labor and tools he had used to break into the insurance company’s office, the thermite he melted the hard drives with afterwards, and the fee he had to pay Ulquiorra for his help in hacking into the computer systems for him, since the technological security had far outclassed the brick-and-mortar’s locks and alarms. 

“Trust is a tricky thing,” Kurotsuchi said as he thumbed through the pages of Haute Living. “But I do value your skills, I’ll say that much. Once Nemu brings your money, I want to talk to you about another job.”

“My, my, what a busy boy you are.”

Sliding those obnoxious sunglasses back onto his face must have been their signal because Nemu appeared moments later with a restaurant take-out bag in hand. She dropped it on the table in front of Aizen and took the magazine from Kurotsuchi without a word. Once Aizen had verified the neat stack of cash in the sack, she left the two of them alone with their business. As she walked away, Aizen watched her go with a look dangerously close to a leer, trying to guess how many concealed weapons she had on her person at that very moment. 

“She still resents me for the whole broken nose thing, doesn’t she?”

Kurotsuchi shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. Stupid girl has no reason to hold a grudge. It’s her fault she lost anyway.”

In an effort to be considerate of the young woman’s unfortunate plight as this grotesque man’s charge, Aizen would argue that it was actually Kurotsuchi’s fault she wound up in the emergency room. After all, he was the one that had instructed Nemu to try and get the drop on Aizen without ever telling her who exactly she was dealing with. Perhaps she would have been a little more alert had she known she was facing a former spy trained to kill in a hundred different ways. Maybe she wouldn’t have underestimated him if she knew that the name Sosuke Aizen was known in every respectable intelligence community west of the Balkans, and whether it was as an enemy or an ally, his skills as a covert operative were undeniable and completely unparalleled.

Then again, that had been years ago. Had she actually been at her best, there’s a chance that Nemu may have been the one to walk away from their exchange unharmed. 

“So tell me about this job, Mayuri,” Aizen pressed. “You’re working off quite a list, aren’t you?”

“I need help eliminating a few… potential threats, we’ll say, and I’m willing to pay a great deal for a clean job. If you’re interested in hearing more, I’m going to ask that you meet me at another location at a later date. This place is way too exposed for my liking.” 

_It’s a hit,_ Aizen realized, suddenly intrigued. Or _hits_ , it sounded like. 

This was a rather sudden departure from Kurotsuchi’s usual repertoire of extortion and thievery and Aizen couldn’t help the bewildered expression that settled on his face. Contracted killings weren’t a large component of his work, either. Or at least not anymore. Plenty of assassinations had been carried out by Aizen’s hand in the name of things like diplomacy and honor and peace and maybe even the greater good, but these days his driving force was not so noble. 

It was money, mostly; simple payment for a litany of jobs for any number of needy and nefarious clients. If his work had any sort of legitimacy to it, it could be billed as private security. Unfortunately, being a burned spy didn’t come with many legitimacies, so all his dealings had to be done in the shadows with cash payments and illegal transfers to offshore accounts. It did not attract business-with-a-smile type folks, though every now and again a friend of a friend of a friend came to him for help and he found himself getting to play the good guy once again. 

Kurotsuchi was probably not asking him to be the good guy this time around, but Aizen agreed to meet him nonetheless. Tomorrow, 3 p.m., Matheson Hammock Park. 

By the time Aizen had made it to the top of the parking garage, Nnoitra had packed the rifle up and moved himself to the back, leaving the front passenger seat available for his boss. He sighed loudly once the air conditioning finally kicked on, still acclimating to the swaddling heat of downtown Miami. It couldn’t be compared to the kind of heat he had been feeling back in Seattle, but it got on Nnoitra’s nerves in a similarly irritating way. He much preferred the wet chill of the Pacific Northwest, but killing a drug queenpin’s brothers had necessitated a rather extreme change of scenery. Aizen had offered him protection from her wide-reaching wrath, so Nnoitra’s best option was to simply bite his tongue and subject himself to the unholy humidity. Not that he was very god at biting his tongue. 

“Goddamn,” he spat once they pulled out of the shaded interior of the garage, “how does Nemu walk around in those long black clothes in this shit? It’s hot as balls out… she’s got too banging of a body to hide it away like that.”

“Oh how criminal of her,” Nel spewed sarcastically. “Nevermind that it’s a hundred degrees out… I’m surprised she hasn’t got heat stroke.”

“It’s probably to hide the ankle holster and combat knife she’s got stashed away. I’d bet she’s got a knife up each sleeve, actually,” Aizen said almost reverently. “That woman could kill you in fifteen different ways with her bare hands.”

“Yeah, right,” Nnoitra scoffed. “I’d break her arm before she ever laid a finger on me.”

“Oh, that’s bullshit,” Nel said. Aizen agreed with her and she laughed derisively back at Nnoitra.

“Ignore the fact that she’s got two black belts and is an expert markswoman,” Aizen said, “but with the way you’ve been looking lately, you’d have a better chance trying to fuck her than fight her. Although, she might kill you either way.” 

“I love it,” Nnoitra cackled. “You think you could set us up?” 

“Absolutely not,” Aizen smirked. “There’s some types of evil even I don’t want to be responsible for.”

•••

Whether it was waiting for the arrival of an armed assailant plotting an assassination or sitting on a safe-house hiding an invaluable snitch, covert operations often involved a lot of sitting around, lurking while trying to appear as unsuspecting as possible. Patience was one of the most valuable qualities a spy could have, even though it was rarely acknowledged. There was a tendency to idolize physical prowess and tactical proficiency as the traits of an ideal operative, and while they obviously had their value, sometimes all a good spy needed to do was nothing. They just had to sit there and turn waiting into an art form. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was part of the job.

Aizen took a deep breath, holding it in for a count before exhaling. He was making the final turn of the route he had plotted on his mental map that would take him out of Coral Gables and back towards home; his second planned escape route. The third alternative would begin in much the same way as the first, but he would simply take Dixie Highway into downtown instead of meandering through the surface streets. The likelihood that he would have to use any of the evasive maneuvers he had planned out was very low, but there was never a reason not to plan ahead. Plus, it gave him something to do while he waited. 

By the time Kurotsuchi arrived, Aizen had planned several alternative routes to not only his house, but to Tier’s loft as well as her house on San Marco Island, and he wasn’t eager to waste more time trying for anything resembling cordial professionalism. With Nemu waiting by the SUV she had driven them in, shoulder holster loaded with a nine millimeter and two spare magazines under her right arm, Aizen jumped right into Kurotsuchi’s business proposition. 

There were two threats: Kisuke Urahara, founder and current CEO of Urahara Unlimited Industries, and Tessai Tsukabishi, his old partner. Kurotsuchi had known them from way back, when he was still gainfully employed by the United States government. The knowledge in the two of their heads would put him in prison for a long time, and he figured that simply taking their heads off would ensure that didn’t happen. 

“Those are big names, Mayuri,” Aizen said with a tone of concern, which seemed to irritate him; Kurotsuchi’s lips curled up into an involuntary snarl. 

“They’re not worth more than 200 thousand,” he sneered. Urahara was actually worth just over a billion, according to _Forbes_. Tsukabishi was closer to half a billion.

“I won’t touch them for less than two-fifty.”

“I’m not asking you to _touch_ them. You can kill them however you want,” Kurotsuchi said with a moderate amount of glee, as if this was a delightful little selling point. “But I want them dead. The things they know… the evidence they have against me is too dangerous; I can’t have that knowledge floating around unencumbered.”

Aizen was adamant. Taking the lives of real people -- innocent or not, dangerous or not -- always sat heavy with him like cold stones in his stomach. The ethical ramifications were clear and the yoke of morality resilient, but that wasn’t what beleaguered him the most. It was the fact that Aizen didn’t particularly care about any of that stuff anymore. That absence of guilt reminded him again and again what sort of man he had become: the sort of man he had once been tasked with eliminating. The sort of man he used to hate.

But resentment and vitriol were powerful fuels for a dangerous fire like him. The heat boiled any doubts he had about murder these days down to simple arithmetic. There was a price for everything and there were risk and rewards tacked on to each new deal. If the odds were in his favor and the money just right, Aizen would probably do anything. 

But the money had to be right. 

Haggling with Kurotsuchi was grueling, but Aizen would not back down from his quarter of a million dollars. In his opinion, that was one of the best deals Kurotsuchi would find for such a delicate job like this. The targeted men had influence and resources and the sort of serious sway that comes with running multinational, multi-million dollar corporations. There would be incredible heat on whoever pulled the trigger on this one and Aizen’s fingers were itching to do it. 

If he had been assigned this sort of job while he was still on government payroll, he would have derived no pleasure in eliminating a man Kisuke Urahara. Being a spy meant knowing how to compartmentalize. Separating personal feelings from professional assignments was crucial in a line of work that demanded participation in high-risk, high-security, and sometimes highly questionable operations. Too many feelings and too many opinions could lead to innocent people getting hurt, and the only way to combat that was to pack any lingering emotions into neat little boxes and file them away for later. Aizen had always been good at that when he was fighting for the flag; his commitment coated any doubts or joys he might have about his work in a thick film of duty. It made it easier for him to operate as an impartial tool for his government, but ever since he had been hung up in the shed and forgotten about, that impartiality had begun to wear away.

Now, Aizen could finally let himself enjoy the personal satisfaction he would get from pulling the trigger on Kisuke Urahara. A man who valued “progress” over all else; who abused and subjugated those beneath him into serving his own needs and interests as if they were his own. A man who manipulated the US government into contracting him and protecting him from enemies all over the globe; who conducted research on unwitting civilians in third world countries far removed from the general public’s eye. 

Foreign insurgents and resistance movements had tried to fight back against his tyrannical science on their soil, but the C.I.A. had quickly put a stop to the disturbances, sending operatives overseas to eliminate any threats. Aizen had been one of them, first weakening the revolutionaries’ chain of command from within and then framing the head of a political faction for the murder of a resistance group’s leader. Aimless and unguided, the group’s anger transferred over to the country’s weakened government and a small political revolution ensued, drawing all the attention away from Urahara Unlimited laboratories, allowing the taboo wok to continue uninterrupted in the shadows. 

In between diffusing a few IEDs, executing a kidnapping, and stealing government intelligence, Aizen caught a glimpse inside one of the facilities. He was able to see first-hand what he was supposed to be protecting -- “the cost of medical advancement.” It was gruesome, hardly more than torture, but he had been trained to see it as a necessity. A price somebody had to pay.

The thing was, people were constantly paying the price for Urahara Kisuke, and they never seemed to notice nor mind. He was a scientist as brilliant and eccentric as Kurotsuchi, but he had been blessed with infinitely more charisma, which made him infinitely more dangerous. People jumped at the chance to work with him, invest in his research, and reap in the rewards. There was something for everyone, because Urahara Unlimited Industries did it all, producing consumer goods from medicines to munitions. There had been speculation that the company was looking to expand even further -- get into the telecommunication game and lay phone lines all over the globe. It would give Urahara unfettered access to all the research subjects and resources he could ever want. 

It was a scary prospect. 

Killing Urahara wouldn’t shut the company down, but thankfully that wasn’t Kurotsuchi’s goal this time around. That may have been too big of a job for even Aizen to pull off. The specialized team of miscreants he’d assembled to help him bust heads over the years was impressive, but that sort of delicate corporate espionage was beyond any of their capabilities. That was not a problem that could be solved with a simple bullet or a bomb. But if Kurotsuchi wasn’t willing to pay for the bullets for this particular task, Aizen would have to find another way to pull it off. 

“Maybe we can come to a compromise,” he said, rubbing his temples. “If you simply want them indisposed and unable to support any claims about you, we might not need to kill both of them.” Mayuri seemed less than pleased to hear this. “If it’s merely the information they have that you’re worried about,” Aizen continued, “all we need to do is discredit everything inside their heads. What they know, what they claim to know, will all become meaningless. And then we can agree on the two hundred,” he added when he saw the skepticism marring Kurotsuchi’s face. His irises were brown today and Aizen wondered if it was their natural color; it seemed more tame than the doctor usually preferred. 

“How do you intent to discredit men like that?” he asked warily.

“Frame one for the other’s murder,” Aizen said, somewhat smugly. 

“Who do you suggest killing?”

“Kisuke Urahara.” As if there was any other choice. Forget about a murder charge; the sort of connections he had would protect him from a nuclear fallout.

“You know, I’d prefer them both dead....”

“And I’d prefer 250 thousand dollars, but since you are adamant about your price…” 

“I guess it will have to do,” Kurotsuchi said to his own chagrin. “Can you guarantee that Tessai will take the fall for everything?”

“I’ve done this several times before, Dr. Kurotsuchi,” Aizen said. “Believe me, I know what I’m doing.” 

In that tricky way of his, the way of a spy, Aizen had avoided making any promises or assurances that he wouldn’t be able to follow up on. He was a man of his word, after all, and even though he threatened to kill him if it all failed, Kurotsuchi seemed to be assuaged for the time being. He deigned to shake Aizen’s hand and told him that he would wire him a hundred grand that evening so Aizen could begin the preparations he needed for this particular job. There was a single caveat: whatever Aizen intended to do, he would have to do it fast. At the end of the month, Kurotsuchi was making a business deal with certain overseas interests that would stand to make him millions. There couldn’t be anything left to stand in his way. 

Watching Nemu peel out of the sand-sprinkled parking lot, Aizen took several more deep, measured breaths before pulling out his phone and dialing Kaname’s number, knowing that he had his work cut out for him. To make this whole thing convincing, to make sure the sentence stuck, he would need help; tactical support, and a lot of it.


	2. Chapter 2

Before he got burned, Aizen was a spy. Before he was a spy, he was Special Forces. A Green Beret. That’s where he met Kaname Tosen, one of the few people who dared to keep in touch with him from the old days. He’d probably always had strong morals and a love for his country, but his service with the United States military was born out of a foolish childhood dream. A week before his tenth birthday, one of the women that helped raise him was killed in action. His birth mother wept for weeks over the loss of her partner and Tosen never looked at the world the same way again. A certain yearning for righteousness overtook him, pushed him to become stronger so he could avenge his broken family. He wanted to find who killed her.

“It was a silly wish… statistically impossible,” Tosen admitted to Aizen one night before they were deployed on a mission to Kosovo. “But I lived in that wish, in that ideal world of justice, for so long… I couldn’t imagine a life outside of it. I was blinded by it. All I wanted was to feel like I was doing right by her; I just wanted to serve.”

And he did serve. Valiantly. Until a nasty chemical explosion at a warehouse in Islamabad robbed him of his sight. All he had now were his connections and a government pension.

And those connections -- in the F.B.I., Homeland Security, the governor’s office, with local police -- were invaluable to Aizen’s current operations, assuring Tosen a say in almost every job that Aizen did these days. Aizen did it out of respect, knowing that he was one of the few people that had helped him out when he was first down; the least he could do was keep him in the loop, give him some business. 

Years ago, Tosen met a washed up Air Force pilot named Shuuhei Hisagi and brought him under his wing. Acting as Tosen’s assistant, the two of them went into the information business, serving as a private investigative team of sorts, not only to Aizen but to several other private security companies in southern Florida. With help from his buddies, Tosen could pull files on the biggest names in the Miami crime world -- drug smuggling and human trafficking and the like. It was because of him that Aizen had been introduced to Coyote Starrk, a gunrunning former IRA soldier, and Baraggan Louisenbairn, a wizened money launderer who used to cook the books for a mob boss back in New Jersey. 

It was a rather lucrative enterprise. It kept him plenty busy, and while Aizen was happy to see his old friend thriving, it irritated him that he had to wait another three days before Hisagi could drive Tosen out to his place in Morningside so they could talk. He had already planned out his moves and possible countermoves and made a mental list of everything he would need to complete the job: some high-grade explosives, backlogged money transfers and phony prospectuses, fabricated correspondence, a handful of illegal pharmaceuticals, a safe house, an armored vehicle or two, and a special sniper rifle. 

Unfortunately, Starrk was still in Belfast for a re-up and was not set to return until the first week of June, after Kurotsuchi’s deadline, so Aizen was left to explore other avenues. That’s why he was almost anxiously awaiting Tosen’s arrival -- if the weapon he needed had to be imported, it could slow his entire operation down by weeks, risking him the rest of his money and the business of one of his more consistent clients. Not only that, but his reputation and his image would be at stake over a botched job like this, so the sooner he could meet with Tosen, the better. 

Despite his eagerness, when Tosen finally showed up with Hisagi and his service dog Sajin in tow, Aizen took the time to serve them iced tea by the pool and ask about their last job, creating small talk and an air of camaraderie. It was nice, actually. Sitting out by the pool, the wind chimes Tier brought back from Buenos Aires rejoicing in the breeze running through the palms; sun warming their skin; Sajin at ease at Tosen’s feet while Hisagi re-told a story that Tosen had certainly heard before. Ice cubes racing to melt in their drinks. Ripples on the surface of the bright blue water. 

Aizen had to thank Tosen for bringing him here. If it weren’t for the little vacation to visit his old army buddy in Miami, Aizen would have been in Moldova when his burn notice went out. Or southern Nigeria. While the beaches were a tactical nightmare and the cost of living untenable for someone with suddenly no assets, Aizen knew there were worse places to be stranded. And in only a few years, he had managed to put down some real roots: he built himself a decent sized crew and a reliable clientele. The work was good, and Tosen knew it. And from the urgency with which Aizen had spoken to him on the phone, he knew this new job would be a big one. 

Aizen explained it all. How he and Kurotsuchi compromised with Urahara dead and Tsukabishi on the hook for murder. Whether or not he beat the rap, Aizen claimed that Tsukabishi would be too busy dealing with the fallout of Urahara’s death to even think about the likes of Mayuri Kurotsuchi, a name he hadn’t heard in decades. Kurotsuchi would be free to make his dirty deal and partake in the spoils; maybe he would quietly relocate to a nice, non-extraditing country with his millions of dollars and loyal step-daughter. If he was still unsatisfied with Tsukabishi’s fate, he could always hire Aizen to go back and finish the job. Assuming that his dissatisfaction wouldn’t end with a bullet in Aizen’s skull as well.

Tsukabishi has been negotiating with a handful of Chinese manufacturing corporations on Urahara’s behalf for about a year now. It wouldn’t be too difficult to make it look like he was working with them to undermine the company and move UUI out of eastern Asia completely, opening the door for his own business to get a foot in. Whether Tsukabishi pulled the trigger himself or not, a gun that was used by Chinese parties would focus eyes in that direction. And that’s where Tosen’s connections would come in to play. 

“I need a new arms dealer,” Aizen said, “someone who can get their hands on a Chinese sniper rifle. Something the People’s Liberation Army would be using. Or something hot, maybe from a Yakuza deal. I know it’s not easy, but this is a crucial piece of the puzzle,” he explained. Tosen understood what was needed of him: he would make some calls, have Hisagi ask around on the streets. He would gladly find whatever it was Aizen needed so he could do his job. Even though Aizen had always been a little obsessive, masturbatory in his duties, Tosen admired his work ethic. 

“You can count on me,” he said, and Hisagi nodded his affirmation. Tosen would do almost anything for Aizen, and Hisagi would do almost anything for Tosen. 

Aizen smiled, “I really appreciate it, Kaname.” 

They came back two days later with a name: Gin Ichimaru.

“Gin?” 

“I hear it’s pronounced _Gin_.”

“I’ve never heard of him,” Aizen said.

“That’s probably what he wants,” Tosen ventured. “For the most part, he keeps his head down and his nose clean. Relatively small time. Doesn’t attract too much government attention. And outside this file, there’s no paper trail at all -- no property in his name, no bank records, driver’s license -- nothing.”

“Dude’s like a ghost,” Hisagi chimed in. “All they had was a sealed prison record from 1997, a bunch of newspaper clippings about shootouts and stuff, and a handful of photos. Here,” and he pushed a little stack of photocopied pictures Aizen’s way.

“He has a lot of suspected ties to Chinese revolutionaries and Korean militants, but there’s nothing concrete or admissible,” Tosen said. “His name is in the air, but there’s nothing tying him down.”

“This is him outside a munitions warehouse in…” Shuuhei paused before taking a stab at the pronunciation of Zhangjiakou, a province just outside of Beijing. “He was suspected of breaking in and stealing some machine pistols and Type 95 assault rifles two weeks later, but there was never an investigation into him.”

The photo he pointed to was a gritty grab from a surveillance video time-stamped 2:38, June 23, 2009; almost five years ago. The black and white tone nearly swallowed the figure in the photo whole -- alternating black pants with a white shirt, a dark surgical mask with his lighting white hair, he blended in effortlessly with the noise of the nighttime photograph.

“You’re sure this is him?” Aizen asked, tapping a skeptical fingertip against the face mask. Some streetwear brand had capitalized upon the ubiquity of the surgical mask in urban areas and stylized it, upgrading the stitching and printing a smirk of razor-sharp teeth across the front of it. Between that and the intense epicanthic folds of his eyes and silver head of hair, the way he appeared to move undetected through the pixels in the photo, Aizen had the sensation of looking at something that wasn’t really there. A ghost, maybe; a sneaky, sharpshooting specter. 

“Yeah,” Shuuhei assured him, “it’s definitely the guy. Look,” and he shuffled some new photos into Aizen’s hand. There were a few more dodgy video stills, a shot from a traffic cam in Orlando, and one color print that probably came from some surveilling fed’s camera, and while they were all spread across time and space, the silver threads that connected them all were unmistakable: Gin Ichimaru.

In every single photo, the guy was smiling, thin and secretive like everything he witnessed was a joke he wasn’t willing to let anyone else in on. Bouncing from South Beach to Bangkok to Osaka in Tommy Bahama shirts and grinning everywhere he went, Gin Ichimaru instantly intrigued Aizen. Aizen, who could never imagine walking through his life with such an unbothered and carefree air, wanted to know, _how did he do it?_

Even when he was still following orders as a government operative, saving lives and protecting innocent civilians, Aizen could never muster up that much fucking levity about what he was doing. Gin Ichimaru was nothing but a violent gunrunner with a ghostly impression and no hardened connections to anyone or anything, and here he was, smiling like some sticky-fingered kid in a candy store. Smirking at the unwitting world around him. 

After several studious minutes of contemplation, shuffling around the same eight photographs, glancing over page-6 headlines, Aizen knew he had to meet this man in person. 

“Is there a connection?” he asked, unafraid to sound hopeful. Not only was Ichimaru an enigma waiting to be unraveled, he was probably Aizen’s only chance at getting the gun before Kurotsuchi’s clock ran out on the job. 

“Surprisingly, yes,” Tosen answered. “Szayelaporro has interacted with him before. Last year, when they built three custom detonators for a group of Japanese ‘businessmen’ looking to get into the…. demolition business. Apparently they met Ichimaru at one of the job sites.” 

“They’ll be our go-between then.” There was no doubt in Aizen’s mind that Szayelaporro had done research into Gin Ichimaru on their own after meeting him and had made some sort of contact. They loved cataloguing interesting assets like business cards in a Rolodex, just in case they ever needed a helping hand. Or a scapegoat. Or a literal hand. “I’ll call and give them the details. Kaname, Shuuhei; I appreciate it.” 

“Anytime, Sosuke.”

“No problem, Mr. Aizen.”

Another four days passed before Szayelaporro came back with the confirmation Aizen wanted. Originally he’d sent them to see Gin Ichimaru with a single blank business card upon which he’d written down an address and signed his name. It was meant as a cordial sign of good faith, giving his new asset a chance to scout him out or look him up if he wanted, but apparently Gin Ichimaru wasn’t interested in accepting it. The card returned to Aizen with Ichimaru’s own signature printed on the reverse and a big blue checkmark scratched next to the street name and house number. The rowdy letters of his name that crawled across the cardstock were antithetic to Aizen’s elegant, curving signature, effectively undermining the neat aesthetic of his calling card and flipping the typical conventions of his contact flat on its back.

“He was about to draw a dick on there, but I advised against it,” Szayelaporro said as Aizen raised a brow at the scrawling print. 

“He’s an interesting one, isn’t he?” he mused, and Szayel agreed. “What can you tell me about him?”

“Not a lot,” Szayelaporro said, but Aizen didn’t believe them. 

“Come on, Szayel. I won’t try to steal him from you, I promise,” Aizen teased.

“Ugh, don’t bother,” Szayelaporro groaned. “He’s already got a girl. And she’s absolutely gorgeous.”

“You’ve met her?” 

“Not directly. I saw her drop him off for our meeting yesterday.”

“Maybe she’s just a friend -- there could still be a chance for you,” Aizen said for Szayel’s sake, though he could care less if the two of them ever got together. It would probably be best for Ichimaru if they never did. “Tell me what you know about him. If he’s as good as you said he was, maybe we’ll be seeing more of him around here.” 

“I only met him twice before, when I was working for those Japanese guys last November. I saw him when I met with their boss. He’s got a real unique look, so I was interested, naturally, and Kitamura told me he was the one supplying their weapons. He got them over two dozen ARs without breaking a sweat. I approached him later about importing some C4 for me, but it seems like he doesn’t deal with that kind of stuff often. The guy didn’t even know the difference between high and low explosives…” Szayelaporro sighed wistfully. 

“What else?” Aizen pressed. 

“The Japanese paid him at least ten grand for the guns. I think they came from a private security firm in South Carolina or something. He delivered part of the order in a black BMW with the guns all disassembled and stashed inside a bunch of furniture boxes from IKEA. He drinks Arizona Tea, smokes Camels, and likes Venezuelan food. That’s all I got,” Szayelaporro said with a shrug. The attention to detail that made them invaluable as a bomb maker also made them great at surveillance, though the little details they bothered to pick up on and remember weren’t always the most helpful. Knowing what brand Ichimaru liked wouldn’t get Aizen very far in planning out how to deal with him. “Oh, he was packing a pretty impressive handgun, too, but I couldn’t tell what it was. Looked modified.” 

“That’s more like it,” Aizen grinned. “Thank you, Szayel. You’ve been a great help.”

“It’s been my pleasure,” they drawled. “Let me know if it works out with him, alright? I wouldn’t mind double-teaming him…”

“Do you mean teaming up with him?” Aizen was afraid to ask. 

“Nope,” Szayelaporro responded gleefully. “Oh, but if you have to kill him, don’t do it in the face, okay? You’ll see -- the man’s too pretty for a closed casket.” 

“I’m hoping it won’t come to that,” Aizen assured them. 

On the off-chance that it did, Aizen asked Nel if she wouldn’t mind providing tactical support the day of the meeting. One gun was all he needed, but once Nnoitra heard about Nel getting invited out to the house on Hibiscus Island, he all but invited himself, whining and complaining until Aizen had no choice but to relent and bring him along. It was not ideal, but Tier was there as well -- it was her house they were using, after all. Even less than ideal was the fact that her hot-headed brother Grimmjow rolled into town the day before the scheduled meet and needed a place to crash. 

“You couldn’t put him up at the Victor?” Aizen asked, tempering his irritated tone. 

“No,” was all she said, and that was how Nel, Nnoitra, Grimmjow, Tier, Tosen, Hisagi, and even Sajin all ended up spread throughout the house on Friday morning, eagerly awaiting Gin Ichimaru’s arrival. The numbers sent an almost threatening message, which was not Aizen’s intent -- if he had wanted to intimidate Ichimaru, he would’ve invited Yammy. 

It was a nice day and he decided to wait in the backyard, an iced tea beside him in the shade of the veranda. Tosen and Hisagi were inside, watching the street for Ichimaru’s arrival; Tier and Grimmjow were laying out by the pool; Nnoitra and Nel were arguing over who would bake out in the sun of the outdoor kitchen for the duration of the meeting. Nnoitra lost, as usual, and Nel triumphantly settled down on the loveseat in the far corner of the porch, book in her lap, machine pistol on the cushion beside her. 

The loud-mouthed gene that plagued Grimmjow had thankfully skipped over Tier, though they shared a similar stubbornness that became less endearing the longer Aizen had to face it. From where he was sitting, he could hear every angry word of Grimmjow’s tragic tale about getting his boat repossessed in Jacksonville -- apparently the cheap Bayliner had been expertly packed with a couple kilos of coke in the subfloor and now he was out a couple thousand dollars. Aizen finished off his tea and started thinking of what sorts of jobs Grimmjow would be best suited for since he would inevitably, begrudgingly, come crawling to him for work. The abrasive personality made him somewhat difficult to work with, but Aizen probably owed it to Tier to help her brother out when he was down. 

At first he focused on bodyguarding, intimidation tactics, but soon found his mind wandering, diverging first to a fantasy heist of Miami Savings & Trust then an assassination of a Ukrainian diplomat he knew would be visiting soon. Planning these jobs was pure sport for him, but he committed to them as if they were real, nitpicking all the little details that were crucial in these sorts of operations. Aizen was so engrossed in his devious daydreams that he almost missed the approaching sound of voices and footsteps on sienna tiles coming from behind him. 

When he glanced up from his steepled fingers, the lithe, silver-haired man from the file Tosen provided was standing beside him, hands in his pockets. The side view of his thin smile was much more charming in person. 

“You gotta give me the name of your realtor,” he said.

Aizen grinned; she was sitting right over there by the pool, feet in the water. The property belonged to her, or more specifically, her absolutely fucking booming real estate business; she owned almost half the other homes on the island. 

“Oh? You like the lanai?” 

“I like the view.” It almost sounded lecherous, but Gin Ichimaru was looking right past Tier and Grimmjow, ignoring all the tanned skin spread out in the sun, and out onto the water. The Venetian Causeway and San Marco Island rose up out of the Bay in the distance, hemming the blue gray water in with a stark framework of concrete outlined in green. “Big fan of moucharaby, me,” he added jokingly, referring to the latticework of lacquered wood on the east and west ends of the patio.

“You’ve got good taste,” Aizen said, though the statement didn’t necessarily apply to the gaudy pink and blue Tommy Bahama shirt that Ichimaru had chosen to wear, a poly-silk blend at least a size too large. He had on black joggers tucked into black crew socks tucked into black most-likely-steel-toed-boots. When Aizen reached out to shake his hand, he noticed a piece of black and blue paracord burned around his right wrist and a cheap diver’s watch on his left. 

“Sosuke Aizen,” he said. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Gin,” he replied, shaking the outstretched hand. 

“Please, take a seat, Mr. Ichimaru.” 

“Gin,” he repeated as he pulled out the chair, the metal legs scraping across the stone floor. A strong breeze cut through the moucharaby he was so fond of and made the thin silver hairs on his head dance.

“I want to thank you for taking the time to meet with me, Gin.” Aizen couldn’t help dwelling on the man’s name this time, trying to hold the shape of it in his mouth for a little longer, accidentally drawing it out into a dark epithet in the air between them. _Gin._

Gin didn’t seem to notice. “Not a problem,” he replied, turning his chair to mirror the angle of Aizen’s, looking out over the immaculate blue and green of the backyard instead of across the table to his tentative associate. Gravity seemed to weigh heavy on his shoulders and heels, pulling him into an incredible slouch as he gazed out at the expensive view. 

“Shame we couldn’t get any alone time, though,” he said after a moment of meditative quiet. “I was looking forward to getting to know ya a little better…”

“Yes,” Aizen had to agree; the armed menagerie wasn’t ideal as much as it was necessary. “Well, that’s to be expected for our first meeting. I didn’t get to be where I am today,” in his rich girlfriend’s six million dollar home, “by being careless.”

“Oh?” Gin’s head lolled on his shoulder as he glanced over at Aizen, amused. “I don’t know whether to be flattered or disappointed…”

“How’s that?”

“You’re that worried about a guy like me -- you feel like you need an entire team to back you up? Either you think quite highly of me, and I’m honored, or you’re just not the big, bad man that I’d heard you were, hiding behind all this muscle…”

With one swift movement that rippled outward through the yard, Aizen pulled his gun out of his shoulder holster. Nnoitra and Nel moved their fingers towards their triggers and Tier and Grimmjow put their poolside conversation on pause when they noticed Aizen holding the weapon out towards Gin. 

“Don’t worry, Mr. Ichimaru. I’m perfectly capable of handling myself. The question now is, are you?”

Gin took a breath. 

The metal made an ugly clatter against the glass despite how calmly Aizen set it down on the table between them. With one finger, he nudged it closer to Gin’s side. 

“SIG Sauer, P226,” was all Gin said, glancing quickly down at the pistol and then back at Aizen.

Aizen nodded. This one was chambered for 10mm Smith & Wesson cartridges. “Take it apart for me,” he instructed. “Field strip it, then put it back together. I’ll give you one minute. Start now.” Flourishing his watch, he eyed the seconds as they began to tick down while Gin wasted precious time just looking at him, all but amused. 

“Sorry, I was waiting for a blindfold or something.” With a sudden smirk, he swung his chair towards the table and picked up the gun, quickly releasing the magazine from the handle to check the ammunition. Even though the clip was full, he inspected the chamber for any other bullets before breaking the semi-automatic down into its component pieces. 

“You know, you can tell a lot about a person from how they dismantle a gun,” Aizen said. He leaned one elbow on the table and rested his chin in his fingertips as he watched Gin work, glancing down at his watch every now and again to track his progress. There was no tremor or hesitation in those hands as he unlocked and separated the barrel from the slide and removed the guide rod, making great time. Each piece clacked against the table as he set it down in the order in which he removed it. Once they were all aligned in front of him, Gin looked up at Aizen for affirmation, winked, and then quickly set to work reassembling them, moving steadily down the line of parts like a conveyor belt. 

The slide clicked back into place with seven seconds to spare. 

“Very good,” Aizen said. 

The backyard seemed to hold its breath as Gin cocked the weapon and pointed it at him. Aizen picked his head up from his hand and looked down at the muzzle of his own gun, aimed right at his chest. He’d had the gun for less than a month -- was it really going to turn on him like this? Nnoitra and Nel stiffened in the corner of his vision, weapons raised, mechanisms cocking into place, and he heard the splashing of feet go silent and murky. The air was tight.

The smile that broke across Gin’s face at that moment suddenly pierced the tension and went right through Aizen’s chest. Hammer strikes of heart against ribs sounded in his ears as he smiled back, pleased to be playing such a dangerous game. He watched Gin twirl the gun recklessly around his finger and point the handle towards him as a steel and white flag of peace. 

“Well?” he asked as Aizen took the pistol from him. He watched as he uncocked it, flipped the safety on, and set it back down on the table between them, an unbothered sign of good faith. “What’d you learn?”

“You’re good with your hands,” Aizen said, humoring him. 

“You know, it’s not the first time I’ve heard that,” Gin replied with a wolfish smile.

“You’re confident and intelligent, but you don’t take yourself seriously,” Aizen continued. “You can handle yourself under pressure, probably because you’ve had to do it before. You’ve adapted to it rather well. You probably thrive amongst chaos.” 

“Wow,” Gin drawled. “It’s like getting my fortune told. You should see what I can do with that old A-5 over there.” He nodded towards the shotgun resting in the crook of Nnoitra’s arm. 

“You’ve got quite an eye,” Aizen observed. 

“I’d know a Browning anywhere. They stopped making those back in the 90’s, though, right? That’s a nice little antique he’s got there.”

“What about Nelliel over there?” 

“Looks like an MP7,” Gin guessed, “with an extended magazine. Scary.”

“You know your stuff,” Aizen said, approvingly.

“That’s why I’m here, isn’t it?” Even though he was smiling, it was clear Gin was getting bored of tiptoeing around the point. “You wanna stop with the tests and tell me what it is you’re looking for?”

“Fair enough,” Aizen sighed, a little sad that their get-to-know-you games had come to such an abrupt halt, but the look on Gin’s face did not invite any further dalliances. “I need a sniper rifle. Something Chinese, ideally.”

“Oof.” Gin ran a few fingers through his hair and sighed. “I think Norinco makes a couple, but there’s been trade bans on them for years.” It wasn’t surprising how quickly the company named jumped off his tongue. Not just because the Chinese corporation was one of the largest defense companies in the world, but because the man really knew what he was talking about; this was just him dipping his toes into his ocean of ammunitions knowledge. “I’m pretty sure they imported a bunch through Georgia back in the early 90’s, but there’s probably not too many of those floating around anymore.”

“I need something more recently produced. Something the PLA would be using nowadays. How difficult would it be to get something like that?” Aizen probed.

“Not that hard if you know the right people,” Gin said, “which I do. Tell me why you need it and I can give you a price range.”

“I’m sorry, were you unaware what these things you sell are used for?”

“Don’t get cute,” he lilted. “It’s a fucking gun, so I assume you’re gonna be using it to kill someone. Tell me about the job.” 

“That’s my business,” Aizen said sternly, “not yours.”

“Look, I’m probably the only one that can get you what you want right now, and if you want us to be in business at all, you’ll tell me,” Gin said confidently. “Or I’ll walk away.”

Losing his temper now wouldn’t get him anywhere, but Aizen wasn’t used to such subtle defiance from his assets. It irritated him, tested his patience. No one he approached had dared to play a game of chicken with him over a job in years. “There’s a threat that needs to be eliminated,” he said after a moment. “That’s all you need to know.” 

“I don’t think so.” Gin shook his head and smiled sympathetically, like there was something Aizen just didn’t get. “Where you shooting from? Downtown, the Everglades -- what? You know your distance, elevation? Moving, stationary target?”

“None of that concerns you,” Aizen pointed out, amused that a gunrunning punk would dare to question the details of _his_ plan. “Once it leaves your hands, that weapon is mine to do with what I will. I’ll happily compensate you for your services in procuring it, but my privacy, and that of my clients, is paramount, and you are not paid to know.” 

“My services,” Gin emphasized, “include my connections, my time, my knowledge… the trouble I’ll go through to get this gun for you. And the amount of trouble I go through, the effort I put in, is gonna depend on the gun that you need. The gun that you need is gonna depend on the shot you’re trying to make. Like, if you’re looking at anything over 1500 meters, you’re shit outta luck; Norinco’s guns just don’t have that sort of range. Sucks, but what are you gonna do? Now before we waste both our times, why don’t you tell me just a bit more about this job you’re doing.”

“Why are you so interested in _my_ job?” Aizen asked, exerting caution. 

“Because it sounds interesting,” Gin said simply. “You reached out to me, a stranger, instead of just waiting for Coyote Starrk to get back from Dublin -- he’s your regular gun guy, right?” When Aizen didn’t respond, Gin just continued. “You’re up to something bigger than a simple assassination. You’ll go through all this trouble for a Chinese gun that’s sub-par, at best… I mean, there’s a dozen other domestic guns that could do the job, probably even better, and for less of a hassle, too. So now I want to know -- what’s your angle? What makes this so special?”

“You’re asking a lot of questions, aren’t you?” Aizen noted, rather icily. “That can be a dangerous thing.”

“Yeah, curiosity killed the cat and all that shit.” Speaking of cats, the grin on Gin’s face could rival that of a Cheshire. “So are ya gonna tell me? Or do we have to go through this whole… thing again? How you need me to get this done and I can always walk away...”

The old man that trained Aizen would turn in his grave over what he was now considering. An unknown element asking too many questions and prying for intimate details about a job could only send up red flags. The walls surrounding Aizen should have gone up even higher and been reinforced from the inside the minute Gin threatened to walk away over a few measly details. And yet here he was, seriously considering unlocking a door for this man to slip in through. Gin was already picking at the mortar between the cinders, might as well reward the teeth and tenacity that had got him this far.

After a beleaguered sigh, Aizen relented. A single brick from the façade couldn’t undermine the entire wall’s integrity. Aizen was a skilled architect, after all. “I need to make one man look responsible for the death of another,” he said. “This particular gun will help complete the illusion of guilt.”

“I want in,” Gin declared. 

Aizen blinked. “Excuse me?”

“I’ll get you whatever gun you want, but ya gotta let me in on whatever this job is,” he said excitedly. “I’ll even cut you a deal -- just let me be there when it all comes together.”

“Absolutely not.” 

“Aw, come on -- why not?”

“I’m willing to trust you to find me a gun, Mr. Ichimaru, but I’m not trusting you to pull the trigger. I don’t work with people I don’t know.” 

“Well maybe you should get to know me then.” Gin leaned across the table and raised his eyebrows. “You said yourself, I’m good with my hands -- might be nice to have me around. Look, look here,” he said, “Norinco makes only two sniper rifles: the Type 88 and Type 86. The QBU-88 is a designated marksman rifle with an effective range of up to a thousand meters. It’s a bullpup, so you got a stealth advantage if ya need it. That’s what the People’s Liberation Army is using these days. On the other hand, the NDM-86 is like a… sexy Chinese version of a Dragunov. It’s a good gun, more sensible and a lot more common. But, if you’re firing the .308 cartridges, you’re gonna have to account for a pretty significant drop at longer ranges.”

Aizen wasn’t entirely sure if guns had ever turned him on so much before. 

“You know anybody else that can do that for you?” Gin asked smugly. “You know anyone that’s even fired one of these things before?”

“I’ll take my chances with it.”

“Look, it’s obvious that this thing is not as straightforward as just shooting a guy. Whatever you’re doing, you’re gonna wanna do it right. You need tact and skill and _style/ _for something like this, and so you need me, because I can do what no one else can.”__

__“Why do you want a taste of this so badly?” Aizen asked, at a loss for any other words. Gin’s boldness and curiosity had piqued his curiosity; his hunger had awakened Aizen’s. It was an invitation for a challenge, and Aizen had never stepped down from one of those before. “Why does it matter to you?”_ _

__“My girl says I’m like a snake…” Gin shrugged. “When I see something I like -- something I want -- I swallow it whole.”_ _

__“You’re calling me your prey?”_ _

__“Not at all.”_ _

__“But you would swallow me whole…”_ _

__“As much of you as I could.” Gin grinned and Aizen was vaguely aware of the double entendre that had warm, sticky fingers curling possessively around his stomach. The clenching fist he made under the table helped expel some of the heat that was running through his body, allowing him to ignore the remaining ardor that was still trying desperately to climb out of his veins._ _

__“Let me in on this,” Gin all but pleaded._ _

__Another sigh escaped Aizen and he felt himself buckling under the weight of the arms dealer’s eager smile. The aloof and harmless act was just an act -- Gin was a real shark, unafraid to ask for more. He knew his own worth and he played by his own rules. He was dangerous and intriguing, piquing Aizen’s genuine interest. Having him around would make the gig that much more memorable, but he’d always been taught that working with people you don’t know is stupid and dangerous. Aizen would be taking a proportionally large risk bringing a stranger in on a job this size. With that much heat, that much money on the table, was it a risk he could afford to take?_ _

__The silence that hung in the air was tense with Aizen’s trepidation and Gin’s anticipation, but he waited quietly and respectfully for Aizen to decide on his answer._ _

__“The 88 will give me what I need,” he said finally, curtly. Part of him couldn’t believe he was actually doing this. “Give me a price. And a chance to get to know you. And if I like what I see, then I’ll let you in on this job.”_ _

__Gin beamed and Aizen knew that grin was bound to get them both into trouble one day._ _

__“Mr. Aizen, you got yourself a deal.”_ _


End file.
